On the 15th December 2008, the municipal council validated Lille’s climate action plan which aims to coordinate and evaluate the city’s activities in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy. An essential part of this plan is dedicated to raise the awareness of municipal workers and building users mostly via simplifying the information provided to them during training sessions. Simple everyday gestures, such as turning off the lights, the regulation of temperature, and maintenance of the building work hand in hand with technical improvements that ultimately lead to “real” reductions in the overall energy consumption of buildings.

The city of Lille has fixed ambitious objectives concerning energy issues in its municipal plan: 50 kWh/m2 annual consummations for new buildings, that means 50% less than in the current national regulation, 90kWh/m2 for rehabilitations and as well as 25% of renewable energies for municipal energy consumption.
These objectives, which place Lille as one of the leading European municipalities, have been fixed because, since several years, the municipality has been exploring energy and economical saving possibilities: the procurement for public lightning, established in 2004, allowed a reduction of 35% of the energy consumption. Thanks to the modernisation of the heating installations,15% savings have been achieved and the percentage of renewable energy use increased.

Something for everybody

Lille’s climate action plan involves all the departments. Because of the cross cutting nature of the work, common objectives have been found and mutual projects developed with a technical coordinator. This for example has aided collaboration between: the department that designs the buildings, those who maintain them, and the final building users.

The challenge is to simplify the way that all the public workers associate with climate change as they will be the actors responsible for making energy savings in the future. To fulfil this, a training course, which addresses site managers and users, is currently being developed.

Education and supporting learners

The information provided to building users will be assured by Display Posters, which present the energy, CO2 and water consumptions of the buildings. The poster is based on the energy label of domestic appliances. This information is complemented by indications for simple actions that building users can adopt to improve the performance of the building.

RALLYing the LILLOIS

The "Lillois" can make the most of the services offered by the city of Lille: The “Housing” department provides financial incentives and project assistance via “sustainable housing” bonuses (insulation, heating, rain harvesting). These bonuses help to cover from 35 to 80% of the investment costs. When the administrative building for “sustainable housing” is complete a centralised information desk will deal with all questions concerning financial aid and incentives.

Key achievements

• 18 million Euros from 2008 to 2014 is being invested for energy efficiency.• 700 tons of CO2/year saved!• 170m² of photovoltaic pannels will be installed on the railway station St.Sauveur.